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Donna Scala, November 2013, in the kitchen of her Orlando restaurant, La Luce by Donna Scala. Photo: Facebook

It was only six months ago that Donna Scalawas making quips about her outgoing chef and longtime friend Scott Warner’s departure from her 20-year-old Napa mainstay, Bistro Don Giovanni.

This morning, Scala died after succumbing to a brain tumor. She was 60.

In addition to Bistro Don Giovanni, Scala had a hand in many Bay Area restaurants. She founded the first Piatti Ristorante in Yountville with Giovanni Scala in 1987; today there are nine Piatti locations. They also were responsible for opening Scala’s Bistro in Union Square in 1995.

Her resume speaks for itself, and from my limited interactions with her, Scala was always a great interview: frank, honest, accessible, funny and exuberant. When former Chronicle staff writer Kim Severson asked her about Penelope Cruz’s chef role in “Woman on Top” years ago, Scala scoffed at Cruz’s lack of technique, then reconsidered: “But you know what? If you looked like her, it wouldn’t matter if you couldn’t cook at all.”

Her cooking style is captured in this paragraph about how she insisted on changing the kitchen at Scala’s Bistro when she came aboard during the build-out:

The kitchen was intended to be discreet. But Donna Scala, the executive chef, insisted on a pizza oven. “Bistro-style food is the ’90s, ” she says. “It’s the kitchens of southern Europe that excite me. High-tech food is not my thing. I don’t do architecturally designed food.” So, now the kitchen is set up like a proscenium, open-to-view with copper pots, Italian pottery, a pizza oven and chefs on display.

This post will be updated when the Chronicle’s obituary goes online later today.